WestBattleJones

You know what.. It doesn't bother me that we haven't won a Grey Cup in twenty four years, what bothers me is that we havent even been remotely competitive in the past eleven seasons. We've had two winning seasons in those eleven years, and in those two winning seasons we had 10 wins. a 10 win football club is an average team in my eyes and we've barely even hit that level of mediocrity.  

If I were Wade Miller I'd have ordered the salad on the side instead of poutine

Lets look at Marcel's historical schemes and see where they ranked in the years he was an OC.
 
Sacks
 
His first 3 years as an OC in Saskatchewan (2003 - 2005) - His offence was the 2nd, 3rd, and 1st best at giving up the least amount of sacks (27,28,23)
 
2007 Montreal - Ranked last in the league (8th) with 68 sacks
 
2008 Hamilton - Ranked last in the league (8th) with 67 sacks
 
2014 Winnipeg - Ranked last in the league (9th) with 71 sacks
 
Passing
 
His first 3 years as an OC in Saskatchewan (2003 - 2005) - He was consistently in the bottom half of the league in passing (7th, 6th, and 8th with 4054, 4619, and 4229 yards)
 
2007 Montreal - Even with Calvillo he ranked 4th in the league in passing with 5044 yards
 
2008 Hamilton - Ranked last in the league (8th) with 4474 yards
 
2014 Winnipeg - Ranked 5th in the league with 4374 yards
 
Rushing
 
His first 3 years as an OC in Saskatchewan (2003 - 2005) - He was tops in the league in rushing each of those 3 years (2605, 2504, and 2436 yards)
 
2007 Montreal - Ranked 6th in the league with 1791 yards
 
2008 Hamilton - Ranked 1st in the league with 2532 yards
 
2014 Winnipeg - Ranked 8th in the league with 1513 yards
 
Points Scored
 
His first 3 years as an OC in Saskatchewan (2003 - 2005) - He was in the bottom half of the league in points scored all 3 years (4th, 4th, and 8th for 470, 444, and 379 points)
 
2007 Montreal - Ranked 7th in the league with 362 points
 
2008 Hamilton - Ranked 6th in the league with 408 points
 
2014 Winnipeg - Ranked 6th in the league with 397 points
 
Summary 
 
Other then his first 3 years in the league 10 - 15 years ago, his offence has consistently given up the most sacks in the league.
 
His passing offence has at best ranked in the middle of the league but that was with Calvillo at the helm, every other year has been pretty much bottom 3rd (or bottom half with Willy).
 
He has ranked 1st in rushing every year except with Montreal and Winnipeg
 
In points scored, his best seasons were 15 years ago when he was ranked about middle of the pack.  Every other year has been middle of the pack to bottom half of the league 
 
So in conclusion, Marcel is at best an average / middle of the pack OC whose offence seems to have more success with the run (except in Winnipeg).  His best passing years passing have been with Calvillo (4th best) and Willy (5th best)
 
Can't wait to see what Willy can do with a new offensive coordinator....

I don't know if anyone is giving Walters a "pass", just a little early to be saying that Waggoner was a bad pick.   Draft is an educated guess and Walters felt he's a better prospect then the OL prospects next year (who no one really knows much about any of them)
 
Not sure it's fair to criticize Walters for a draft pick made just 3 months ago.... because our starting QB went down in game 7 ....and now people assume our season is done...and we're automatically going to be picking first or second in next year's draft...
 
I know it doesn't look good but that's a lot of conclusions to jump to

I don't blame O'Shea for leaving Willy in. You can't honestly expect to wave the white flag with an entire half of football to go, that makes zero sense and it's a defeatist attitude.
 
That being said, the sooner Marcel is fired, the better. The talent may not be ideal up front, but his offense including the schemes' inability to actually provide even AVERAGE protection for our franchise player is NOT good enough and we need to find a replacement. Period.

No doubt that Jon Byner was a funny man but Super Dave Osborne was the real star of Bizarre. Guy was a live-action muppet.

I think everyone has valid points and as was mentioned, hopefully we don't get to see either of them play.
 
The one thing I will add about Marve "making things happen" or "moving the ball" when he has played, I think he's been a little lucky in his small sample size.  I saw a number of throws last year (Calgary game comes to mind) where he threw across his body and back towards the middle of the field that we're narrowly missed by about 2 inches by the defenders.  They were not smart throws and 9 times out of 10 they get picked off, and if 1 or 2 of them had been this wouldn't be much of a debate at all
 
As well, everyone see that failed 2 point convert a few games ago.... where the ball went backwards as he tried to throw the ball?.  Sure its one play and those things happen but if Brohm did that people would be using that as another example of him sucking...why not then for Marve?
 
Again, not saying Brohm is better than Marve and Brohm deserves a lot of the grief he is getting.  It's just that Marve has not shown any amount of great quarterbacking in order for him to be seen as any kind of saviour

I think everyone has valid points and as was mentioned, hopefully we don't get to see either of them play.
 
The one thing I will add about Marve "making things happen" or "moving the ball" when he has played, I think he's been a little lucky in his small sample size.  I saw a number of throws last year (Calgary game comes to mind) where he threw across his body and back towards the middle of the field that we're narrowly missed by about 2 inches by the defenders.  They were not smart throws and 9 times out of 10 they get picked off, and if 1 or 2 of them had been this wouldn't be much of a debate at all
 
As well, everyone see that failed 2 point convert a few games ago.... where the ball went backwards as he tried to throw the ball?.  Sure its one play and those things happen but if Brohm did that people would be using that as another example of him sucking...why not then for Marve?
 
Again, not saying Brohm is better than Marve and Brohm deserves a lot of the grief he is getting.  It's just that Marve has not shown any amount of great quarterbacking in order for him to be seen as any kind of saviour

I think everyone has valid points and as was mentioned, hopefully we don't get to see either of them play.
 
The one thing I will add about Marve "making things happen" or "moving the ball" when he has played, I think he's been a little lucky in his small sample size.  I saw a number of throws last year (Calgary game comes to mind) where he threw across his body and back towards the middle of the field that we're narrowly missed by about 2 inches by the defenders.  They were not smart throws and 9 times out of 10 they get picked off, and if 1 or 2 of them had been this wouldn't be much of a debate at all
 
As well, everyone see that failed 2 point convert a few games ago.... where the ball went backwards as he tried to throw the ball?.  Sure its one play and those things happen but if Brohm did that people would be using that as another example of him sucking...why not then for Marve?
 
Again, not saying Brohm is better than Marve and Brohm deserves a lot of the grief he is getting.  It's just that Marve has not shown any amount of great quarterbacking in order for him to be seen as any kind of saviour

It's pretty obvious you have an agenda. You're not quite at the point of making stuff up, but whenever Brohm is brought up, you make excuses for his lackluster play and whenever Willy is brought up, not only do you downplay his abilities, you go as far as padding your valid points with a bunch of nonsense just to try and get extra jabs in at the guy.
 
I literally saw you downplay Willy's numbers in the pouring rain and criticize him for not being productive and then when someone pointed out that he was playing in a torrential downpour, you ignored it entirely.
Then the next day, when talking about Brohm's performance in the same game, you let him off the hook because of the weather even though it wasn't even raining when he played.
 
If that's not having an agenda, I don't know what is.
 
On top of that - I keep seeing you mention "exciting" ... is Ricky Ray not exciting? Because that's the mold Drew Willy fits into. Is he Ricky Ray? No, but he's getting there and that's the style of pro QB he is. I feel like you don't like Willy because he doesn't dance around and get you out of your seat. The most exciting thing to me is winning, I don't care how the guy gets there to do it and the truth is, Drew Willy can and will be a winning QB in this league when they give him the best possible chance to succeed (which will basically be when our OC stops making dogshit play calls)

People can talk about his work with Calvillo all they want. It was worth considering his work with Calvillo when we hired him, obviously, by looking at his prior work and seeing his successes and failures. 
 
He's been here long enough that we can judge whether he is the right OC for us based on what he is showing as Bomber coach. I see an offense that's been able to attack downfield often yet still manage to maintain a high completion rate from their (starting) QB. 
 
I think almost every fan in the CFL feels their OC is too predictable. Its always easy to look back on it. Part of me feels that fans want some ridiculous trick plays consistently, but that's not part of the discussion here, just a tangent on my part.  I think if you study the offense week in and week out you can see the wrinkles he keeps adding. The formations and movement prior to the snap for instance have shown a clear desire to show the current opponent one thing, and present further options in later weeks. Little things, like having Moore head towards the QB with the potential of taking a hand off.
 
All this isn't to say MB is perfect. He deserves his share of the blame as the guy who's in charge of the offense. Still, MB gets little of the praise when the offense works and seemingly the most blame when the offense doesn't. Meanwhile, Willy struggled against blitzes early in the season, there are still several OL struggling to maintain blocks consistently, and Brian Brohm flat out can't hit an open receiver. Anytime Willy gets hit we're reminded that MB's offenses have had QBs take a lot of hits. This is a valid criticism if applied correctly, but often I think here it isn't. For example, Tyler got blown backwards and beaten immediately on the play Willy got hit on. Other times Willy has failed to identify the direction of the blitz, resulting in a hit. None of this is on MB. Now, there have been times when we've reduced the protection in favour of spreading out the offense, and in some of these cases I think the criticism of getting his QB hit is warranted. 
 
The thing I'm most hoping for is Willy to stay healthy, because I think he can be outstanding in this offense. And if he isn't, then at least we have more film to work off of when fans are evaluating both Willy and MB. Having Brohm play is complicating the evaluation and probably providing a more negative outlook on this offense, in my opinion.

FYP

Willy gets hurt....Bombers give up 31 straight points, in 15 minutes
Willy hurt again..Bombers give up 28 straight points, in  23 minutes
 
Something is seriously lacking here.....aside from having Brohm as #2...

Our play calling is quite honestly atrocious.

Putting our team rivalries aside for a minute. The Bomber fans have done a good job supporting the team through a drought that has lasted too long. You are right our season ticket numbers will go down if we continue to struggle but I contend that 22k or better is a number that will hold as we too have a solid fan base and we too know what suffering is. I've been there for years and have enjoyed the good times, but have seen more bad times I'm afraid. I think what's happening now to certain extent is the fans are not going to just watch things go down the crapper without saying something. Gone are the years where we are just happy to have a team. Yes some are panicking, but that happens everywhere. the crazy fans don't speak for the majority as it is in every cfl city.  

All I Know is I would rather my team lose by 10 but play a decent game, the other team just played better.  Losing by 1 point because of 4 turnovers, a missed extra point, boneheaded decisions by players, blocked kick, etc infuriates me.
 
As was mentioned, any one or two of these 8 dumb things doesn't happen and we probably win
 
We beat ourselves and an opportunity was given away

I don't know if Walters and O'Shea are the "right guys" but I do know that Mack/Lapo got to a Grey Cup and Berry/Taman got to a Grey Cup and these guys seem to be better at their respective jobs than those guys ever were.... In my opinion, of course.
There is a lot of parity in the league right now. If the Bombers get hot at the right time, they could win it all. Why not? I don't know why so many people stand out on the ledge after a loss. It's one game, we're .500. We almost stole one in Calgary... By which I mean, any win in Calgary has to be considered a steal for the Bombers with their history there. I've been a lot more worried about the team than I am right now... They look ok to me.

So maybe we shouldn't of criticized our offense considering how little Hamilton did.

Yeah the Entourage vibe comes from having Mark Wahlberg as the producer. Its very like the Entourage as well in that they have guest stars from the NFL (current and past players and coaches) playing versions of themselves, much like Entourage has a lot of movie stars playing themselves, and as Entourage was supposed to be a glimpse of sorts into how Hollywood works this show is supposed to be a glimpse into how the NFL operates, including contract negotiations etc. I like it, it's pretty funny, and the Rock is pretty good in his role as a newly retired NFL player trying to become a financial manager while dealing with his past concussion history and lingering pain/painkiller addiction, and also trying to retain a shred of integrity. I highly recommend it to football fans. The slam on Saskatchewan was the first CFL reference I've seen so far, but I expect a few more. What is funny is that the Rock actually played for Calgary in 1995.

Watching that play live and now on replay a few times, the one thing I can guarantee is that the side judge had no idea where the ball was.  Sutton was walking into the endzone and the official anticipated it, not that Randle would fly in and drill him out of bounds.
 
I haven't seen an angle where I thought the ball was anywhere near the goal-line.  Sutton's right side ends up turned away from the goal-line parallel to it.
 
The purpose of replay should just be to get the call right.  Forget the irrefutable evidence crap.  Given how often the officials are wrong or flat out lazy in terms of being in position to make the right call, why does their call count for more than the replay official?

Hey everyone, long time reader first time actually posting
 
We sit in Sec 103 and the play happened right in front of us, everyone was going nuts as the ball did not cross the line.  His left arm appeared to but the ball never did so we were wondering why the refs never said it was being reviewed etc.
 
As mentioned though, it is a moot point and there probably wasn't a definitive angle to overturn it.
 
It was a close game though and the last couple of years a call like that would usually come back to bite us

Agree 100% and I'm a realist so lets wait and see.... but it's still fun to see them panic and go crazy deciding on who should be fired first!

Hey everyone, long time reader first time actually posting
 
We sit in Sec 103 and the play happened right in front of us, everyone was going nuts as the ball did not cross the line.  His left arm appeared to but the ball never did so we were wondering why the refs never said it was being reviewed etc.
 
As mentioned though, it is a moot point and there probably wasn't a definitive angle to overturn it.
 
It was a close game though and the last couple of years a call like that would usually come back to bite us